Disposable sheet style dispensers are well-known in the art for dispensing individual folded sheet products such as facial tissues, hand sheets, wet wipes, or the like. In general, disposable sheet dispensers typically include a container and a stack or clip of pre-folded, interfolded sheets disposed within the container. The sheets may be C-folded, V-folded, Z-folded, tab-bonded or flat so that once the top sheet in the clip is withdrawn, the underlying sheet is individually presented for subsequent use.
One of the common problems among disposable sheet dispensers involves the issue of “double pull”. This occurs when more than one sheet comes out of the container when the leading sheet is withdrawn. Additionally, the problem of “streaming” can occur in disposable sheet dispensers. Streaming occurs when the user pulls the first sheet out, and subsequent sheets are also withdrawn, with the separation of the following ones never occurring.
To overcome some of these problems, disposable sheet dispensers have been designed where the dispensing slot is covered by a plastic film defining a slit. The use of slits has worked well in eliminating some of the above problems. Narrow slits are also well-suited to presenting tissue sheets for subsequent removal. In some applications, however, it is sometimes difficult to remove the initial sheet from the stack when a slit is present. For instance, the slit can interfere with the ability of a user to grab the leading edge.
In order to overcome some of these problems, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,574,952 to Masui, which is incorporated herein by reference, a box containing facial tissues is disclosed in which a tape or strings are attached to the undersurface of a removable panel of the box and, in turn, attached to the upper most of the facial tissues. In this manner, when the box is opened, and the removable panel is removed along a perforated line, the upper most facial tissue is automatically removed from the container along with the removable panel.
In U.S. Pat. No. 6,715,633 to Thoms, which is also incorporated herein by reference, a dispenser for dispensing a stack of disposable sheets is disclosed having a removable panel that is releasably attached to the first sheet in the stack. When the removable panel is pulled off the container, the first sheet in the stack is partially withdrawn from the container. After being partially withdrawn, however, the sheet releases from the removable panel.
Although the above two patents, especially the '633 patent, have provided advancements in the art, further improvements are still needed. In particular, a need exists for an attachment mechanism for use in either of the above disclosed dispensers for attaching the first sheet in a stack of disposable sheets to a removable panel. More particularly, a need exists for a method of attaching a tissue sheet to a removable panel of a dispenser using an adhesive without the adhesive interfering with the production of the dispenser and the loading of the stack of disposable sheets into the dispenser.